Reading between the lines not particularly necessary. After largely quieting Jadeveon Clowney in the Outback Bowl, Taylor Lewan has got to be out the door. Everyone expects it; latest bit to read into:

"I haven't addressed the team yet," Lewan said. "I'll address the team, then we'll do whatever (sports information director) Justin Dickens, Coach (Brady) Hoke wants to do and how he wants to let that out to the public.

"It's not fair to my team to tell y'all, then not tell them."

Why hold off for a formal announcement if he actually intended to stay for his senior season?

"Next question," Lewan said.

Ah well.

Hope for sanity. I'm still holding out for the Eye of Sauron but I'll take anything that gets Michigan and Ohio State in the same division. It sounds like that may in fact happen. Rittenberg:

Delany has said geography would be a bigger factor in the new division alignment than the first one, so expect several teams to be on the move. Several items to watch:

Will Ohio State and Michigan be placed in the same division? It would eliminate the possibility of a rematch in the Big Ten championship, but it might balance out the power between the two divisions.

Will Wisconsin move back to the "West" side of the league? The Badgers would like to play Iowa every year, and their rivalry against Nebraska packs plenty of potential.

I'm holding out a vague hope they'll add a ninth conference game.

Gallon checkup. The Mathlete was kind enough to run the numbers on my Gallon yards per target speculation from yesterday and came up with this:

Don't have bowl games in yet, but Gallon is 22nd in Yds/Target for players with 50+ targets. At 11.0 YPT, its the third best UM season, behind Hemingway last year (12.0) and Manningham in 2006 (11.1)

That is impressive. The bowl game may push Gallon above Manningham as long as Gardner didn't miss him too much, and Manningham was kind of good. I bet Gallon's final five games are even better. Bodes well for 2013, especially since Minnesota/Northwestern/Iowa/OSU/South Carolina is a pretty tough stretch relative to a full schedule with cupcakes and whatnot.

Of note: Gallon's 2011 was 10.8 on 42 targets, so you can tack that on to your sample size to increase your confidence he can play, and that Borges is a notch above previous offensive coordinators who did not desire to unleash the dragon as much.

"It's about the things I can do, and the other things in my life I have to take care of,'' Gholston said. "But I know I can graduate on time. I may have a year and a semester left (to get a degree).''

FWIW. Their defense should be fine without Gholston, but losing Bell would be rough. MSU has very little on their roster—just Nick Hill and a few not-so-touted freshmen. Unless they strike gold twice in a row that looks like a major dropoff.

Statement of slight annoyance. The kPOY suffers from Rebound Overrating Syndrome, as many basketball statistical measures do. Mason Plumlee is getting a lot of rebounds on both ends, but how important is that really when as a team the Blue Devils are sitting right on the national average on defense? And are poor on offense? If Plumlee's rebounding was truly a major asset Duke would probably be, you know, good at it. They are not, so he's probably just grabbing rebounds from teammates.

QED bit of this is that when Ben Wallace—who I love don't get me wrong—left the Pistons their rebounding changed in no way whatsoever. Rebounds just happen. They're important, but just because you get a lot doesn't mean someone else couldn't do as good a job if they were in your role. Meanwhile, on a team level the correlation between defensive rebounding and efficiency seems extremely weak. Exactly one of the top ten teams in DREB has a defense that ranks better than 77th in efficiency: Michigan, 39th. Three of the ten check in better than 100th. Hauling down monster boards is less important than any of the other four factors*, but it is the one defensive thing we have a stat for, so…

Trey Burke, obviously, is being robbed, and don't get me started on Russ Smith, whose main asset is huge usage on a team with the #1 D in the country. FIGHT ROS.

*[In the top ten in eFG%D you find one defense outside the top 100 and five top ten outfits. TOs have four outside the top 100 but also feature the top two defenses in the country, Louisville and Syracuse. FTrate also has four outside the top 100, but none very far outside and has six teams better than the 77th that DREB brings. Rebounding is the least important factor.]

So I clicked on your Ben Wallace article, read your statement about Billups being invaluable and sighed because apparently Joe Dumars couldn't figure that out (and also decided using that cap room on Ben Gordon and Charlie Vilanueva was a good idea)

NSFMF . . . he's starting to get things back together. The Billups trade was a gamble that blew up in his face (he wanted to rebuild on the fly with the cap space gained there, only to find that none of the elite free agents wanted to come), but his willingness to make bold moves that a lot of GMs wouldn't helped him build that contender in the first place. Detroit's not a glamorous destination. If you want to build a winner here, you've got to take risks. The Andre Drummond drafting was panned by a lot of people at the time (the Detroit Bad Boys blog gave him a D- draft grade), but it's looking like an absolute steal now.

The problem with the Billups trade wasn't actually the trade (I do realize that it was time to move on from that core), but rather spending it on subpar FA. The Pistons would have been better off sitting on the money and unintentionally intentionally tanking for a good draft position rather than being just good enough to avoid the prime draft slots.

I thought the Drummond pick was a no brainer. You don't get the chance to get a potential star guy like that at #8 very often so you snap him up when you can. Nonetheless Dumars should still get credit for pulling the trigger there. While I've been pretty consistent on thinking Dumars should go, I can't say with any certainty that there's a better option right now as far as GMs go.

Joe D's made his share of mistakes, but one thing I will give him is that he seems to have a lot of credibility among players around the league. Even the guys he trades never seem to be too upset with him. That could be worth something. Right now, with Drummond looking like he could possibly become a franchise player, I think we have to hang on to the GM that drafted him. Even if it was a no-brainer, Dumars is the guy who gave Drummond a chance when other GMs passed on him - that should hopefully resonate with him down the road when it's time to re-sign.

In the draft open thread everyone was excited that Drummond dropped. Dumars has not made the mistake the guys in front of him have the last three years by not passing on a dropping guy, but I'm not sure that's not damning with faint praise.

Unfortunately the year to really tank was last year. Because the other top picks the last few years since the trade haven't been world beaters. But yeah, this mentality of winning as much as you can is wrong headed. The object of the League isn't to be in the last spot of the playoffs every year, just good enough to get there, but never getting the players that make you great. It's to win championships. To do that you have to stink. Hard. It's not like they're selling out the arena anyway. So opening up the cap space to try and get that star wasn't a bad idea. When that star wasn't coming blowing the money on horrible free agents was counterproductive. It just made you average for more years. Save the space for flexibility and ability to sign someone really good if you get someone good in the draft to put him by.

And I question how hard he really went after that free agent class. It seemed more like he wasn't bending over backwards to get them, so rather than convince them, when he saw little interest he was ready to go another way. He signed his two stiffs the openign day of free agency. Of course he would have been better off finding a way to get Garnett like the Celtics did, because the T-Wolves didn't get a lot for him. And he was Billups buddy and probably presented a better chance at a championship than the Celtics did at that time. But that never seemed to work.

I'm not married to the idea of keeping Joe D, but it they were going to fire him, the time was a couple years ago. His track record is mixed, but I do like his willingness to make bold moves. A lot of franchises never go anywhere because they won't ever make the risky move. Drummond now looks like one of the three or four best players in this rookie class, but just six months ago, eight GMs passed on him. Dumars had the guts to take him.

Last year, at the time, I thought the Pistons screwed up by not tanking, but Drummond's made it a moot point. They can build around him. He has enough upside that even Monroe might be expendable as trade bait.

I just think his championship ledger as gotten a lot closer to even after Darko, Billups, and the free agent signings. The evil step mother screwed him out of years of being able to do ANYTHING and he's earned te right to try and rebuild. I just have a difference of opinion with him on how best to do that. I thought it was Mr. D who always wanted them to try and win as much as they can. But it seems to continue. Though they'll probably get lucky this year in the lottery when the reward is the great white hope.

He's a guy who should go. He's not going to have a much better season than the one that just happened, since his safety help won't be as good next year. And he's as ready as anyone--I'd take him over any Lions CB right now.

IMO CBs were fine. Houston is a starting caliber CB and is way better than Dennard. Jonte Green showed a lot of promise in limited time and should only get better with coaching and experience. Bill Bentley was actually highly regarded and did well aside the fact that he doesn't turn his head around while the ball is in the air(common for young CBs).

S is a bigger mess than CB. Aside from Delmas who is a legit starting S, they have no talent or depth at S. They need to find a competent starting S opposite Delmas and a contenigency plan if Delmas is hurt again.

Interesting to note that if he had the requisite minutes (he plays in 36.5% of minutes, kenpom requires a minimum of 40% of minutes to count in rebounding stats), he'd be 2nd in the COUNTRY in offensive rebounding percentage and 30th in defensive rebounding percentage.

must be generated from the offense. Cause he went 45 of 50 on christmas from that pink zone. Maybe he should shoot from there more often during games... To think that 3-pt % could get higher(!)? wow....

The chart is particularly entertaining because people were complaining on his Christmas YouTube video that he was shooting all from the right side or the middle. But as we all suspected, he is equally deadly from the left!

I'd love to have Lewan stay, but it will be good for Michigan in a way to have a really high first round pick. It seems like a long time since Jake Long went No. 1, though I realize that BG went in the first round too.

As for Stauskas, only 43% from the right corner? He needs to get to work over there. That's just slacking.

...but...having Mahorn gobble all the defensive rebounds likely helped Laimbeer (a piss poor defender, but a good rebounder) focus more on his marking his man than having to block him out after a shot. Similarly, Rodman's ability to grab offensive rebounds not only added a ton of possesions, it allowed Laimbeer to run around the perimeter stalking 3s. Obviously those Piston teams were "you know...good at rebounding", but if Plumlee's rebounding is allowing his teammates to be more productive elsewhere on the floor, it's highly advantageous even if it doesn't help his team's overall rebounding stats.

Laimbeer a piss-poor defender? No way. He was not a great shotblocker but his physical D drove opposing centers nuts. He completely got under Kevin Duckworth's skin in the '90 NBA Finals (when Mahorn was no longer on the team).

I'll give you that on Duckworth (no HOFr there), clearly the amount of contact allowed then is far different than it is today, and that was to Laimbeer's advantage. If memory serves, both an aging Kareem and Parish (and later a very aging Cartwright) did good work on Billy. I guess my point is a relatively immobile center was allowed to focus on his D in part because he wasn't expected to have to grab every defensive board (largely due to the presence of Mahorn).

Not sure about this. I don't recall Mahorn being a great rebounder. Laimbeer usually ranked in the league leaders in rebounders - there was a stretch of about five years in the '80s where he was the top overall rebounder.

My recollection is that Mahorn was more the "goon" who roughed guys up and allowed Laimbeer/Rodman to dominate the glass.

Led the League in 85-86 in rebounds. Mahorn played more of the low post defense because even though he was an inch shorter he was heavier and stronger. Though it would depend on team to team. Mahorn used to drive McHale crazy. And of course when Rodman came into his own everyone's rebounding went down because he grabbed all the rebounds. All the rebounds.

What was wrong with the nameplates on the hockey jerseys? They were designed to be throwback jerseys since the GLI was supposed to be played outdoors, and apparently M played with contrast colored nameplates sometime in their history. I haven't found any pictures to confirm, but I think it was likely intentional, not an adidas screwup.

I spent Tuesday night drinking with Elliot Mealer, Jack Miller, and Taylor Lewan. Had a great time and of course I asked the burning question - Is Lewan leaving or staying. According to those closest to him he's staying. I did ask him after he'd had a few, and my impression was that he feels he has unfinished business at Michigan. He's a funny guy, and has far too many finger tattoos... oh and if any of them are under 21, they were drinking Coca Colas. I swear.